Introduction to Habermas's Discourse Ethics

Habermas situates the moral point of view within the communication framework
of a community of selves. He moves Kant's categorical imperative beyond its
'monological' reflection by demanding that we emphatically take into
consideration the viewpoints of all who would be affected by the adoption
of a certain moral action or normative claim. In a similar vein, he 'lifts'
Rawls' veil of ignorance and demands that we participate in a discourse where
all are fully aware of the other's perspectives and interpretations.

This move toward a 'dialogical form of practical reason' is incumbent upon
'post modern societies' where an irreducible plurality of 'goods' conditions
and limits the horizon for moral conversation. Morality comes to represent
duties and obligations within a just society -- a society in which 'rights'
trump competing 'goods' in circumstances of conflict. (r.c.)

[Note: portions of the following are from "The Political Computer: Democracy,
CMC, and Habermas," in Ess, ed. Philosophical Perspectives on Computer
-Mediated Communication, (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 197-230.]

Habermas's discourse ethics emerge as part of a larger project to sustain,
in at least a reconstructed (Habermas's term) form, the Enlightenment project
of political emancipation and democracy.

Enlightenment Democracy, Relativism, and the Threat of Authoritarian Politics

A central issue in Habermas's effort to sustain the Enlightenment project
is the problem of relativism. This problem underlies several postmodern
critiques of modernity, the Enlightenment, and Habermas, and is thus a useful
first path into Habermas's thought.

1) however diverse cultures and individuals may vary from one another in
terms of religious convictions, traditions, sentiments, etc. - reason
(at least in potential - a potential that must be developed by education)
stands as a universally shared capacity of humanity;

2) such reason is characterized first of all as an autonomy or
freedom - a freedom which, for such central figures as Locke and Kant,
is capable of giving itself its own law;

3) just as this reason seems capable of discerning universal laws
in the domain of mathematics and the natural sciences (witness the success
of the Copernican Revolution and Newton) - so reason, it is hoped, is capable
of discerning universal laws and norms in the moral and political
domains.

As an example of such a universal norm: if I am to exercise my freedom by
choosing my own goals and projects - this freedom requires that others
respect these choices by not attempting to override them and
make use of me for their own purposes. (In Kantian terms, others must never
treat me simply as a means, but always as an end.)

But if I logically require others to respect my freedom as an autonomous
rationality, then insofar as I acknowledge others as autonomous rationalities
- reciprocity demands that I respect others' freedom as well.

This norm of respect then issues in the political demand for democracy:
only democracies, as resting on the [free and rational] consent of
the governed, thereby respect and preserve the fundamental humanity of its
citizens ( i.e., precisely their central character as rational freedoms).
[This argument, initially launched by
John Locke, finds
its way into Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and from there
into the arguments for women's emancipation in writers such as Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, and the arguments for civil rights as articulated by
Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail.]

Over against the universalism associated with reason and its norms
in such Enlightenment thought, however, relativism argues that no
such universal human characteristics and norms exist. Lyotard, as but one
example of postmodernist thought, strenuously objects to such universalism
as an element of what he characterizes as the "metanarrative" of the
Enlightenment, a metanarrative he seeks to overcome in favor of localized
narratives and traditions.

For Habermas, however, stripping the Enlightenment project of its universalist
intention suspends its emancipatory dimension: if the conception of human
beings as rational autonomies and the correlative requirement of consent
can not be defended as universal in some strong fashion, then
we paralyze our capacity to be critical of norms and politics which contradict
this conception of human being and the democratic polities this free humanity
requires. In short, the loss of the universalist claims of the Enlightenment
to postmodern (and other sorts of) relativism opens the door to authoritarian
politics in all its forms.

For Habermas, the threat of authorianism is an especially forceful reality:
as a young man, he witnessed the brutality of the Nazi regime. In order to
save human autonomy and modern democracy from the very real threats of fascism,
Habermas seeks to reconstruct the Enlightenment arguments for reason and
universalism in several ways - for example, by developing a richer conception
of reason in the light of empirically-oriented research in sociology, psychology,
speech-act analysis, etc.

Discourse Ethics: grounded in tacit assumptions of universal validity

In particular, Habermas seeks to ground a discourse ethics in the what he
takes to be a fundamental assumption of conversation or discourse: especially
when we make statements such as "you ought not to be a racist," "it is just
to reward people according to their labor," etc. - our "ought" here is intended
to signify that these moral norms (avoiding racism, providing just rewards)
are not valid solely for the individual who happens to accept them.
Rather, especially if we argue, if we seek to bring others to accept
our views on fundamental issues - we tacitly assume that these norms are
valid for all people: our arguments are designed to persuade others that
they should agree with us regarding these norms.

This usually tacit assumption of the univeral validity of our claims is
fundamental to what Habermas calls communicative action, the process of giving
and criticizing reasons for holding or rejecting particular claims - a process
apparent especially in the natural sciences, law, and criticism. Insofar
as one grants that such argumentation leads to universally valid claims -
an admission one is most likely to make with regard to the sciences - one
then concedes Habermas's central point: communicative action defines a
rationality capable, through discourse, of arriving at universal norms.

Discourse Ethics: the conditions for developing universal norms

Once relativism is overcome in this way (as well as others), Habermas then
concerns himself with the conditions under which universally valid
claims might be expected to emerge.

The first of these is the original freedom of all members of a community.
Echoing the classical Enlightenment argument requiring the consent of humans
as freedom, this freedom means: in a discourse in which a community seeks
to establish a norm or procedure - acceptance of proposed norms and procedures
must rationally motivated, i.e., free and uncoerced (Habermas,
"Justice and Solidarity," 6).

A related condition is equality. Equality means, in part, that all
participants have an equal voice in the discussion regarding proposed norms
and procedures. In particular, consensus emerges here as a requirement
- i.e., the uncoerced agreement of all who are affected by a proposed norm
or procedure.

Discourse Ethics: Three Principles

These conditions are stated more formally by Habermas in the form of three
principles:

Principle 1: a principle of universalization, one that intends to
set the conditions for impartial judgment insofar as it "constrains all affected
to adopt the perspectives of all others in the balancing of interests"
("Discourse Ethics," 65). The principle of universalization
itself states:

All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects [that] its
[a proposed moral norm's] general observance can be anticipated to have for
the satisfaction of everyone's interests (and these consequences are preferred
to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation). (ibid, 65)

Principle 2: "Only those [moral] norms can claim to be valid that
meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity
as participants in a practical discourse " (ibid, 66).

In short, the conditions for the practical discourse out of which universally
valid norms may emerge include the participation and acceptance of all who
are affected by such norms, as such norms meet their interests.

Principle 3: Consensus can be achieved only if all participants
participate freely : we cannot expect the consent of all participants to
follow "unless all affected can freely accept the consequences and the side
effects that the general observance of a controversial norm can be expected
to have for the satisfaction of the interests of each individual" (ibid,
93).

Discourse Ethics: the Rules of Reason

To circumscribe such discourse more carefully, Habermas takes up rules first
proposed by Robert Alexy as "the Rules of Reason" (1990,
165-167). In Habermas's formulation in "Discourse Ethics," these are:

1. Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take
part in a discourse. 2a. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever.

2b. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse.

2c. Everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires, and needs.

3. No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising
his rights as laid down in (1) and (2). (86)

Such rules are seen to circumscribe the ideal speech situation, one which
stresses equality and freedom for each participant - especially

freedom to participate in the discourse in critical ways so as to
express one's own attitudes, desires, and needs, and

freedom from coercion of several sorts.

As David Ingram puts it, community members' participation in discourse will
be "unobstructed by ideological prejudices, temporal limitations, and external
domination - be it cultural, social, political, or economic" (Ingram, 1990,
148).

Discourse Ethics and Solidarity

Finally, Habermas acknowledges that these
procedural rules must further be complemented by a sense of solidarity
between participants. Such solidarity involves concern for the well-being
of both one's fellow human beings and of the community at large. As Habermas
has put it recently,

Under the pragmatic presuppositions of an inclusive and noncoercive rational
discourse among free and equal participants, everyone is required to take
the perspective of everyone else, and thus project herself into the
understandings of self and world of all others; from this interlocking of
perspectives there emerges an ideally extended we-perspective from which
all can test in common whether they wish to make a controversial norm the
basis of their shared practice; and this should include mutual criticism
of the appropriateness of the languages in terms of which situations and
needs are interpreted. In the course of successfully taken abstractions,
the core of generalizable interests can then emerge step by step.

("Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls's
Political Liberalism," Journal of Philosophy (XCII:3 [March, 1995]
117-8)

Discourse Ethics and Democracy

For Habermas, the general conditions of the ideal speech situation and the
rules of reason, especially as coupled with this sense of solidarity, describe
the necessary conditions of democratic polity. (That is, at this point
Habermas reaches his intention of justifying democratic polity over alternative
forms - especially as those forms are supported, however inadvertently, by
relativism.)

At the same time, these conditions and rules establish the legitimacy of
pluralism. That is, a diversity of communities and participants, while
following the same set of rules regarding discourse, may establish diverse
sets of norms as legitimate for a given, but not all, communities. (This
pluralism offsets especially postmodern critiques of modern rationality and
technology as "totalizing" and thus totalitarian.)

Finally, the rules of reason offer specific guidelines for a discourse community
as it seeks to resolve difficult ethical issues - such as the issues of
pornography and free speech.